175- Social gatherings and self-growth

During my 15th CBT session, my therapist raised an interesting topic. She was giving me advice how to better handle anxiety in a specific social gathering, and which can be expanded to any social event. 

This advice is to note and remind myself why I invited these friends, how it would help me to grow - what values I attached to this or other invitations. 

At that moment, I was inspired to work on listing various ways and positive effects that social gatherings have on my psychological well-being. (my list won't be organized, but in flow of inspiration). 


Additionally, this inspiration can be about my personality traits which benefits the most from socializing, such as learning to cope with social anxieties and phobias, not yielding to avoidant tendencies and thus, each social event that I attend becomes a milestone towards recovery and healing.

• I'm passionate about deep exchanges, not shallow ones. Inviting or accepting invitations by close friends with whom I share enough interests, passions, ethics (etc) help to deepen such friendships and share with people I feel I can belong to - thus I'm part of a whole, not only a marginal bystander.
• I love making a community live and thrive. This is the second reason to my blogging - in hopes to create dialogue, and exchange about the topics raised on each of my blogs. This is also why I participate in twitter mental health chats a few times a week. 
• I love encouraging meetings. When I can, I invite friends for social or video games, or to watch movies, or simply to catch up over drinks or meals. I more rarely accept invitations, but am working on that. 
• I love seeing friends I share passions with, not just to see them one on one for easier talks but also, for mutual friends to see one another and enjoy their visit - which I try my best to make as cozy and friendly as possible. I manage that better than I used to (though there is a lot of room for improvement. )
• Seeing friends replenishes me like a bowl of fresh air. 
• So do walks, strolls and hikes in nature - would be best with fellow photography buffs, who'd be patient enough with my lingering over a flower or insect... I did try that very few times and it breaks the monotony of my lonely nature trips. 
• It prevents me from sinking too much further into depression. 
• I'm a chatterbox ; I love talking and can do so for hours- only once I feel comfortable to do so. Easiest has always been a discussion with one person at a time, because I don't tend to interrupt others when there is a group. 
• As I said, each time I invite or accept, I ''avoid avoidance'', and learn how to do better in subsequent social events. Eventually, the goal is to achieve a new normalcy of ease in social situations and thus, heal partially or fully my social phobias, from which I've suffered for over 3 decades.
• Making friends has always been a difficult social exercise. The past few years, I've learned some new social skills. The most challenging has been in the past 2 (almost 3) years, ever since my mental health plummeted and I finally got diagnosed with social phobias. I had to learn to open up and discuss the topic with new friends, and explain why I was sick during their first visits. Working my exposures with my therapist has helped ease my anxieties and thus, I've learned to better cope when friends visit me/us. 
• Each successful social gathering or event means a boost to my self-confidence, which has always been an issue for me 
• Also, these help to better appreciate the friends who stick with me in spite of my difficulties and many refusals of invitations 
• and help my post-traumatic growth through mutual fruitful human relationships (see my entries about cPTSD or abuse suffered in my dad's cult) 

It's been a long day ; I think I made a good basic list for the moment. If anything else comes to mind, I'll either edit this, or make a new post, according to circumstances.